Police suspect hizb hand in army officer’s killing

Srinagar: Militants belonging to Hizbul Mujahideen may have killed young Kashmiri army officer Lt Ummer Fayaz and an INSAS rifle snatched from cops could have been used in the crime, the Jammu and Kashmir police suspect, a media report said on Thursday.

A senior police official also said that Fayaz’s body did not bear any torture marks while adding that the post-mortem report is awaited, the report added.

“We have conducted preliminary investigations. It does point out to (the involvement of) a module of Hizbul Mujahideen active in Shopian,” Inspector General of Police Kashmir S J M Gillani was quoted as saying in the report.

Police have found two empty cartridges of an INSAS rifle at the place where Fayaz was shot dead by the militants in Shopian.

“We had two incidents of weapon-snatching in south Kashmir recently. We have leads that the Kulgam snatching was carried out by Lashkar militants while Hizb militants were involved in weapon-snatching at Shopian court complex (on May 2). So it could be one of those weapons,” IGP was quoted as saying.

Gillani said the post-mortem report was awaited but added that there were no torture marks on Fayaz’s body, the report said.

“The doctors and police officers who examined the body did not find any torture marks.”

Fayaz had gone to attend the wedding of the daughter of his maternal uncle at Batapura, about 74 kms from here, from where he was abducted by the militants at around 10 pm on Tuesday. His bullet-riddled body was found Wednesday morning.

On his first leave since joining the Army, he had reached Batapura from Akhnoor in Jammu region where he was posted with 2 Rajputana Rifles.

Hailing from Kulgam district, Fayaz was commissioned in the Army in December last year.

The Army has vowed “to bring the perpetrators of this heinous act of terror to justice”.